Many of the developments made to toy dolls and animals in recent years have focused on enhancing play for a child user by providing a certain amount of interaction between the user and the toy. To this end, providing an interactive toy with life-like and intelligent seeming interactions with a user is disclosed and exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,514,117 and 6,544,098 to Hampton et al. for “Interactive Toy” issued Feb. 4, 2003 and Apr. 8, 2003, respectively, divided from parent U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,490, also to Hampton et al. for “Interactive Toy” issued Nov. 21, 2000, and all three sited patents are incorporated herein by reference.
The Hampton patents disclose a toy that incorporates a cam operating system provided with cam mechanisms associated with each movable body part for controlling movements thereof. The cam operating system includes a single control shaft driven for rotation by a single motor. This compact arrangement can be utilized for small sized toys while still precisely controlling and coordinating the movable body parts to provide life-like reactions and interactions with a user. Additionally, the single motor is reversible allowing body movements to occur in a non-cyclical pattern for more life-like responses compared to prior cycled responses.
The Hampton patents also disclose the use of sensors incorporated into the toy for detecting predetermined sensory inputs and for dictating movements of the movable body parts in response to the sensed inputs. Additionally, a programmable information processor for activating the reversible motor cooperates with the cam operating system to precisely control and coordinate movements thereof to provide a toy with life-like mannerisms.
The interactive toy as exemplified in the '098 Hampton patent, further discloses the incorporation of a speech synthesizer for audio interaction with the user, sound generating circuitry, and means for processing information in order to control the motor and speech synthesizer. The information processor in the toy provides a rudimentary artificial intelligence impacting verbal responses, language learning, motor operation and overall operating modes of the toy to provide life-like and intelligent interactions. The toy may operate in any one of a plurality of operating modes, incorporating a variety of look up tables, for example, in response to the processed information and the sensory inputs to modify the operation of the movable members and the audio interaction and thereby providing methods for interacting and exhibiting a maturing of the toy in response to the users interactions.
Specifically, as seen in the '098 patent, various artificial intelligence (AI) functions are provided. Sensor training is also provided in which training between the random and sequential weightings defines a random sequential split before behavior modification of the interactive toy, allowing the child to provide reinforcement of desirable activities and responses. In connection with the AI functions, appropriate responses to particular activities or conditions are provided, e.g., bored, hungry, sick, and sleep. Such predefined conditions have programmed responses which are undertaken by the interactive toy at appropriate times in its operative states. Additionally, as discussed, the interactive toy maintains its age (1-4) in a non-volatile memory, and can increment the age where appropriate.
Accordingly, summarizing the wide range of life-like functions and activities that the compact and cost-effective toy herein can perform to entertain and provide intelligent seeming interaction with a child, the following is a description of the various abilities the preferred toy has and some specifics in terms of how these functions can be implemented. The toy plaything is provided with the computer program which enables it to speak a unique language concocted exclusively for the toy plaything herein, such as from a combination of Japanese, Thai, Mandarin, Chinese and Hebrew. This unique language, called “Furbish” for example, is common to all other such toy playthings. When it first greets the child, the toy plaything will be speaking its own unique language. To help the child understand what the toy plaything is saying, the child can use the dictionary that comes with the toy plaything.
The toy plaything responds to being held, petted, and tickled. The child can pet the toy plaything's tummy, rub its back, rock it, and play with it, e.g., via sensory input buttons. Whenever the child does these things, the toy plaything will speak and make sounds using the speech synthesizer of the co-processor. It will be easy for the child to learn and understand Furbish. For example, when the toy plaything wakes up, it will often say “Da a-loh u-tye” which means “Big light up.” This is how the toy plaything says “Good Morning!” Eventually, the toy plaything will be able to speak a native language in addition to its own unique language. Examples of native languages the toy may be programmed with include English, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Japanese. The more a user plays with the toy plaything, the more the toy plaything will use a native language.
The toy plaything goes through four stages of development. The first stage is when the child first meets the toy plaything. The toy plaything is playful and wants to get to know the child. The toy plaything also helps the child learn how to care for it. The second and third stages of development are transition stages when the toy plaything begins to speak in a native language. The fourth stage is the toy plaything's mature stage when it speaks in the native language more often but will also use its own unique language. By this time, the child and toy plaything will know each other very well. The toy plaything is programmed to want the child to play with it and care for it.
At various times the toy plaything is programmed to require certain kinds of attention from the child. Just like a child, the toy plaything is very good at letting people know when it needs something. If the toy plaything is hungry, it will have to be fed. Since it can talk, the child will have to listen to hear when the toy plaything tells the child it wants food. If the toy plaything says “Kah a-tay” (I'm Hungry), it will open its mouth so the child can feed it as by depressing its tongue. The toy plaything will say “Yum Yum” so the child will know that it is eating. As the child feeds the toy plaything, it might say “koh-koh” which means that it wants more to eat. If the child does not feed the toy plaything when it gets hungry, it will not want to play anymore until it is fed. When the toy plaything is hungry, it will usually want to eat 6 to 10 times. When the child feeds the toy plaything, he should give it 6 to 10 feedings so that it will say “Yum Yum” 6 to 10 times. Then the toy plaything will be full and ready to play.
If the child does not feed the toy plaything it is programmed to begin to get sick, e.g. The toy plaything will tell the child that it is sick by saying “Kah boo koo-doh” (I'm not healthy). If the child allows the toy plaything to get sick, soon it will not want to play and will not respond to anything but feeding. Also, if the toy plaything gets sick, it will need to be fed a minimum of 10-15 times before it will begin to get well again. After the toy plaything has been fed 10-15 times it will begin to feel better, but to nurse it back to complete health, the child will have to play with it. Just like a child, when the toy plaything feels better it laughs, giggles, and is happier. The child will know when the toy plaything is better because the toy plaything will say “Kah noo-loo” (Me happy) and will want to play games.
When the toy plaything is tired it will go to sleep. It will also tell the child when it is tired and wants to go to sleep. The toy plaything is usually quiet when it sleeps, but sometimes it snores. When it is asleep, it will close its eyes and lean forward. Sometimes the child can get the toy plaything to go to sleep by petting it gently on its back for a while. If the child pets the toy plaything between 10 and 20 times, it will hum “Twinkle, Twinkle” and then go to sleep. The child can also get the toy plaything to go to sleep by putting it in a dark room or covering its eyes for 10-15 seconds.
If the child does not play with the toy plaything for a while, it will take a nap until the child is ready to play again. When the child is ready to play with the toy plaything, he will have to wake the toy plaything up. When the toy plaything is asleep and the child wants to wake it up, he can pick it up and gently tilt it side to side until it wakes causing the tilt/invert sensor to resume from the low power mode. Sometimes, the toy plaything may not want to wake up and will try and go back to sleep after it is picked up. This is okay and the child just has to tilt the toy plaything side to side until it wakes up.
There are many ways to play with the toy plaything. The child and toy plaything can make up their own games or play some of the games and routines discussed herein which the toy plaything is already programmed to use. One game is like “Simon Says”. During this game the toy plaything will tell the child what activities to do and then the child has to repeat them. For example, the toy plaything may say, “Pet, tickle, light, sound.” The child has to pet the toy plaything's back, tickle its tummy, cover its eyes, and clap his own hands. As the child does each of these, the toy plaything will say something special to let the child know that he has done the right action. The special messages are: 1) for TICKLE the toy plaything will giggle; 2) for PET, it will purr; 3) for LIGHT, it will say “No Light”; and 4) for SOUND, it will say “Big Sound”. When the child hears the toy plaything say these things or purr, he will know that he has done the right action. The first game pattern will have four actions to repeat. Then if the child does the pattern correctly, the toy plaything will reward the child by saying, “whoopee!”, or by even doing a little dance. The toy plaything then will add one more action to the pattern. If the child does not do the pattern correctly, the toy plaything will say “Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah!” and the child will have to start again with a new pattern.
To play, the toy plaything says, “Tickle my tummy”, “Pet my back”, “Clap your hands”, or “Cover my eyes”. When the child wants to play this game it is important that he waits for the toy plaything to stop moving and speaking after each action before doing the next action. Therefore, to get the toy plaything to play, after the child tickles it, the child should wait for it to stop moving before petting the toy plaything's back. Then after the child pets the toy plaything's back, the child should wait until it stops moving before the child claps his hands. If the child does the pattern correctly and gets the toy plaything to play the game, the toy plaything will say its name and “Listen me” so the child will know it is ready to play. If the child wants to play the game and follows the pattern and the toy plaything does not say its name and then “Listen me”, the toy plaything is not paying attention to the child. The child will then have to get the toy plaything's attention by simply picking the toy plaything up and gently rocking it side to side once or twice. The child should then try again to play. Once the toy plaything is ready to play, it will begin to tell the child which pattern to repeat. The toy plaything can make patterns with up to 16 actions. If the child masters one pattern, the toy plaything will make up another new pattern so the child can play again and again. To end the game, pick up the toy plaything and turn it upside down. The toy plaything will then say “Me done” so the child will know to stop playing.
Additionally, as exemplified in the '117 Hampton patent, the sensors also allow several of the toys to interact with each other. The toys include control circuitry for allowing communications between the toys and the user, and wireless communications systems are further included and associated with the control circuitry of each toy to allow for toy-toy interaction. A signal generated by a first toy is sent to a second toy to initiate interaction therein by signaling the control circuitry of the second toy to indicate receipt and send back signal communications to the first toy causing toy-toy interactions. Toy-toy interaction can progress through the actuation of moveable members of the first and second toys by signaling the control circuitry of the other toy, thereby, for example, giving the appearance of the first and second toys dancing together. Also, producing sounds from the first toy can be actuated by signaling the control circuitry of the second toy and the generating of the external signal through the wireless communications of the second toy and coordinating the sounds produced from the first toy so that the two toys appear to be vocally responding.
Several other interactive toys and interactive toy technologies define systems, apparatuses and methods for orally communicative and tactile interaction between a person, a toy and a computer. In these known interactive toys, the function of the computer, or other smart device, has been to facilitate the communication, interaction, and development of the relationship between the end user and the toy, for example, by increasing the complexity of the vocabulary that may be used between the user and the toy, by defining commands that the user may present to the toy, by storing data related to the user-toy interaction, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,746,602 to Kikinis for “PC peripheral interactive doll” issued May 5, 1998, relates to bi-directional communications with a microphone and speaker to fully enable a peripheral device embodied as a “personalized” entity, e.g., an interactive doll system. Through the execution of control routines by the CPU, communication is executed between the PC and the personalized entity as a peripheral device wherein stored audio is retrieved by the CPU, passed to the personalized entity via the communication link, converted to analog audio at the speaker in the personalized entity, and wherein voice input via the microphone in the personalized entity is converted to audio data by control circuitry, transferred to the computer via the communication link, and utilized at the computer in conjunction with the control routines to guide selection of stored audio data to be retrieved and sent to the personalized entity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,752,880 to Gabai et al. for “Interactive doll” issued May 19, 1998, relates to controlling a toy that carries out at least one action via a computer system that uses a first wireless transmitter to command the toy to perform an operation and that receives feedback pertaining to performance of the operation by transmitting from the toy to the computer a second transmission via a second wireless transmitter.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,022,273 to Gabai et al. for “Interactive doll” issued Feb. 8, 2000, relates to a wireless computer controlled toy system operative to transmit a first transmission from a computer via a first wireless transmitter and at least one toy including a first wireless receiver, the toy receiving the first transmission via the first wireless receiver and operative to carry out at least one action based on the first transmission. Also, a method for generating control instructions involves selecting a command from a plurality of toy-related commands and generating at least one command that either instructs the toy to verbally prompt a user or commands the toy to await a verbal response from the user before transmitting the verbal response to the computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,195 to Gabai et al. for “Computer system having bi-directional midi transmission” issued Jun. 13, 2000, relates to a wireless computer controlled toy system that transmits and receives MIDI data and operates to carry out an action based on wireless transmissions. This system allows a wireless computer to control a computer controlled toy wirelessly using a MIDI interface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,290,566 to Gabai et al. for “Interactive talking toy” issued Sep. 18, 2001, relates to a toy with developing skills including a figure having capacity to perform an action with control circuitry operative to control the figure at different levels of skill. This invention discloses a computer controlled toy system that interacts with a computer controlled fanciful figure via a bidirectional speech communication link to translate speech in a first language from the fanciful figure to the computer to speech returned from the computer to the fanciful figure in a second language using software to translate from one language to another and to develop language where no translation is available.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,319,010 to Kikinis for “PC peripheral interactive doll” issued Nov. 20, 2001, relates to providing a communication link by coupling communication ports for direct command communication and direct voice communication between a host computer and an interactive personal article, such as a doll, that includes a speaker for reproducing sounds and/or actuators for moving parts. In these embodiments, the interactive personal article, such as a doll, is viewed by the computer as a peripheral device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,478 to Gabai et al. for “Techniques and apparatus for entertainment sites, amusement parks and other information and/or entertainment dispensing sites” issued Mar. 5, 2002, relates to an amusement park apparatus including entertainment providing nodes with a node controller, or computer, operative to assign each player to individual games. These techniques and apparatuses define a communications network that creates associations between amusement park game players, games chosen by the game players, and nodes associated with particular games where node controllers provide for game playing interaction between the game players and the nodes, where a node may present an animated computer controlled character.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,867 to Gabai et al. for “Script development systems and methods useful therefor” issued Mar. 12, 2002, relates to generating scripts having verbal content for a computer-controllable animated figure with script elements each representing an action. The system includes a graphics based user interface that allows a user to define scripts having verbal content that allow a computer to control a computer controllable animated physical figure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,177 to Gabai et al. for “Method for using a toy to conduct sales over a network” issued Apr. 9, 2002, relates to methods for using a toy for effecting sales over a public network by employing interactive speaking and listening functions. The method includes providing a toy having interactive speaking and listening functionality, connecting the toy via a public network to at least one server having transactional functionality, and using the interactive speaking and listening functionality of the toy to provide salesmanship.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,206,745 to Gabai et al. for “Programmable assembly toy” issued Mar. 27, 2001, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,773,322 to Gabai et al. for “Programmable assembly toy” issued Aug. 10, 2004, relate to a programmable assembly toy including a multiplicity of toy elements which are joinable to define a player selectable structure. The player may select several toy elements to define and build a structure where some of the toy elements are controllable and to use a player programmable control system to control the controllable toy elements that are part of the player defined structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,773,344 to Gabai et al. for “Methods and apparatus for integration of interactive toys with interactive television and cellular communication systems” issued Aug. 10, 2004, relates to integrating interactive toys with interactive television, computer, or cellular mobile communication systems and allowing the television, computer, or cellular mobile communication systems to send control commands to the toy.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,160,986 to Gabai et al. for “Interactive toy” issued Dec. 12, 2000, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,959,166 to Gabai et al. for “Interactive toy” issued Oct. 25, 2005, relate to an interactive toy apparatus including speech recognition for receiving speech inputs from the user employing an interactive content controller using information relating to the user's preferences received via the user input receiver and stored in the user information storage unit for providing interactive audio content via the toy. Computer systems and interactive teaching techniques are used with these verbally interactive toys for logging information received from user inputs at toys in relation to individual past interactions for information to control the toys. The resident software in the toy uses scripts defining branching between alternative user sections in response to any of a user input, an environmental condition, a past interaction, personal information related to a user, speech recognition, a remote computer, and a time related condition to personalize and advance the verbal and tactile interaction between the user and the toy. The toy uses a plurality of motor controlled facial features at different positions and different rates to generate an illusion of different emotions. Thus, a user's combination of personal inputs through direct interaction between the user and the toy define a personalized combination of scripts that give the toy a user prompted personality.
Significantly, the above described improvements in the inter-activeness of a seemingly responsive toy have continuously evolved and have further enhanced play for a user. The addition of cam operating systems, for example, to a relatively small interactive toy has allowed for movement of numerous movable body parts of the toy to enhance the life-like and seemingly intelligent reactions of the toy. Further, the addition of sensors, IR technologies, and a programmable information processor for actuation of the cam system in the toy has added to the responsiveness and more appropriate and life-like toy interactions. Two interactive toys may now also react to one another. The addition of a speech synthesizer for audio interaction with the user, sound generating circuitry, and means for processing information in order to control the motor and speech synthesizer has provided a rudimentary artificial intelligence in the toy for impacting verbal responses, language learning, motor operation and overall operating modes of the toy to provide life-like and intelligent interactions.
Additionally, the incorporation of a computer/smart device to interactions with the toy impacted the orally communicative and tactile interaction between the user and toy. Interactive toys which utilize a computer/smart device provide for the computer/smart device to facilitate the communication, interaction, and development of the relationship between the user and the toy, for example, by increasing the complexity of the vocabulary that may be used between the user and the toy, by defining commands that the user may present to the toy, or by storing data related to the user-toy interaction, etc. Further integration of other numerous technologies, as described above, into interactive toys has also provided for real time conversations between toys and the user and manipulation of the toy by the computer as well as by the user. The computer, or other smart device of known interactive toys has not been used to provide an interface to another virtual character residing on the device with a personality that can interact with both the player and the physical toy.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to further incorporate another dimension of interaction from a virtual character with a personality and emotions active within a virtual world residing on a computer/smart device and uniquely interactive with both the user and the toy. The inventions discussed in connection with the described embodiment address these and other deficiencies of the prior art.
The features and advantages of the present inventions will be explained in or apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment considered together with the accompanying drawings.